ABU DHABI // Parents accused of torturing and killing their four-year-old daughter said they "did not mean to" do it, the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court heard.
When questioned, the mother, S?Q, said she did not intend to hurt the child and was only trying to discipline her.
She said her daughter, Mariam, had been "uncontrollable" and had to learn good manners.
She also said that was the only "way of upbringing" she knew of and was used to.
The father, A?S, said he had nothing to do with the daughter's upbringing, and had left that job solely to the mother.
The child was taken to hospital after she had trouble breathing and started vomiting severely.
She died of a brain haemorrhage. Medical reports indicated she had suffered several skull fractures which led to her death.
A postmortem examination found the child was covered in bruises that she had sustained over the years.
Doctors' shock at how thin and malnourished Mariam was led to the arrest of the parents.
They claim the child had fallen, which caused the bruises.
The parents must now appoint lawyers and the case will resume next week.
AAlkhoori@thenational.ae
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
